1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to manufacturing a microstructure using a Lithographie, Galvanofomung, and Abformung (LIGA) process, and more particularly, to a mask used for a LIGA process, a method for manufacturing the mask, and a method for manufacturing a microstructure using a LIGA process.
2. Description of the Related Art
LIGA is a German acronym that stands for Lithographie, Galvanofomung, and Abformung referring to lithography, electroplating and molding, respectively. A LIGA process refers to a microstructure processing technique including an X-ray lithography process, an electroforming process, and a plastic molding process.
Meanwhile, a micromachine, which is also referred to as a micro electromechanical system (MEMS), is manufactured by applying semiconductor fabrication techniques, such as an etching process, a photolithography process, and a plating process. In recent years, laborious research for the fabrication of micromachines using a LIGA process has progressed. A simple microstructure may be easily fabricated using a LIGA process including a one-time X-ray lithography process and a one-time plating process. The fabrication of a complicated microstructure may involve, however, a multi-step LIGA process including performing an X-ray lithography process twice or more and performing a plating process twice or more.
In the multi-step LIGA process, a plurality of photoresist layers should be precisely aligned in order to fabricate a complicated microstructure without failures. Contemporarily, the photoresist layers have been aligned using an optical method. The alignment of the photoresist layers using the optical method requires, however, not only a lot of tools, such as a jig for fixing a substrate to which the photoresist layers are adhered, a Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) camera for photographing an image, and a microscope for closely comparing and observing photoresist patterns, but also a highly skillful aligning technique. Therefore, the alignment of the photoresist layers would be costly and take much time, thus lowering the productivity of the microstructure.